On Wednesday, July 27, the Federal Executive Council (FEC) accepted a document from the Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs, Disaster Management, and Social Development for a standard operating process for safeguarding the civilian and humanitarian nature of asylum seekers from Cameroon.
An individual from Cameroon seeking asylum in Nigeria must first persuade the authorities that he or she has genuinely renounced armed conflict before he or she can be recognized as an asylum applicant, according to Minister of Information and Culture Lai Mohammed, who confirmed the clearance.
He said this is to guard against the possibility of granting asylum to insurgents from Cameroon.
Lai Mohammed said;
You all know that due to the insurgency in Cameroon, Nigeria has witnessed an influx of Cameroonian asylum seekers and there’s basic standard procedures for you to be granted status as an asylum seeker.
“Also there are cases of some of them who have come even when they claim to have surrendered their arms, go back at times, to join the separatist movement in Cameroon.
“So, all we’ve done today is to establish the standard procedure to ensure those claiming to be asylum seekers are actually not insurgents themselves that have come to destabilize Nigeria or people who will come and be launching attacks against their own country from the comfort of Nigeria.”